The Faithfulness of God in an Unfinished Story- What Our Family Has Learned Through the Loss of Our Home and Health

Many testimonies are told after the breakthrough has come. This isn't one of those stories.This is a story about learning to praise God before the answers arrive. About discovering that His goodness isn't waiting on the other side of our circumstances, but has been faithfully present in the middle of them all along.

About a year and a half ago, our family's life changed in ways we never could have imagined. After several years of unexplained health struggles affecting nearly every member of our family, we discovered that our home had become unsafe because of extensive hidden mold contamination. When the test results came back in the highest unsafe range, we packed what we could and left within days. We moved out of our home on Christmas Eve 2024. We thought we'd be gone for a week or two while the problem was investigated and hopefully repaired. Sadly, we were never able to move back in. Leaving our home was one of the hardest decisions we've ever made, but it was one we believed God was leading us to make in order to protect our family's health.

Overnight, the life we had spent years building seemed to unravel. During the next ten months, we lived in ten different places across several states while continuing to navigate the long road toward healing. It was incredibly hard. There were moments it looked like we might actually be homeless, but every time, God provided in perfect timing. 

At first we hoped our home could be repaired. But after inspections, testing, and meeting with contractors, we were told that repairing the house would cost more than building a completely new house, and neither option was financially possible for us. Last summer, we made the heartbreaking decision to tear down our home and part with nearly 90% of our belongings that were also contaminated beyond saving.

In the midst of that loss, God quietly provided again. 

A family from our church generously purchased a portable cabin so we could move back onto our farm. Today our family of eight lives in less than 800 square feet. It has stretched us in more ways than I can count, but it has also allowed us to be home on our farm again while we wait on the Lord for whatever comes next.

I know mold illness can be difficult to understand if you've never experienced it yourself. But this article isn't really about mold. Every family has a different wilderness, ours just happened to involve mold and the severe illness it brings, losing our home, and waiting for healing. Yours may look entirely different.

The deeper story I hope you take away from this, is learning how to trust God's goodness when life doesn't unfold the way we prayed it would.

We are still living in what I often call our "before breakthrough" season. We haven't reached the chapter where everything is restored. I still pray every day for healing, for myself and for the rest of my family. I still pray the Lord will provide a permanent home for us, whether on our current farm or somewhere else He leads.

But I no longer believe those prayers have to be answered before I can testify to His goodness. If anything, this season has taught me that there is just as much of His goodness in the in-between as there is in the breakthrough.

Sharing this story feels vulnerable because it has been a painful journey and it is unfinished. I know God is good, but I don’t know how He will finish this story out.  But perhaps that's exactly why it is worth telling now.

Too often we only hear testimonies after everything has been restored. Yet millions of believers around the world are faithfully walking through their own valleys today. Some have lost homes. Others have buried children, received devastating diagnoses, lost jobs, or carry heavy burdens no one else can see. Every day reminds me that we are all walking through something.

That is why this story isn't ultimately about just our family's circumstances,  it's about the God who meets His children in the middle of them.

One unexpected struggle throughout this season had nothing to do with our house. It had to do with this magazine.

Homeward Revival launched just two weeks before we unexpectedly left our home. It was a project I truly believed the Lord had placed on my heart, and that He asked me to step forward with it in faith. Writing has been one of my greatest joys since I was a little girl, and I was so excited to create something that would encourage families to build Christ-centered homes, while living that out with my own family.

Then, almost overnight, I found myself trying to write about cultivating a Christ-centered home while grieving the loss of our own. I wrote about choosing joy while quietly wrestling with deep discouragement. I wrote about God's faithfulness while pleading with Him to make sense of our circumstances. I found myself encouraging others with truths I desperately needed to keep preaching to my own heart.

More than once, I asked the Lord if He would allow me to set the magazine aside. Surely someone else's life looked more stable. More beautiful. More inspiring. Surely someone else would be better suited to encourage families.

Yet every time I prayed, His answer remained the same. "No. Keep going." For the longest time, I couldn't understand why. Why would He ask me to write about home when I no longer felt like I had one? But somewhere along the way, I began to realize I had been asking the wrong question.

Instead of asking, Who am I to write about these things while my life is falling apart? I began asking, What if the encouragement He wants others to hear is that our homes are wherever He is, and wherever a family commits to living wholeheartedly for Him, He will meet them there.  I realized the Lord never asked me to write from a place of certainty or polished answers. He simply asked me to be faithful where He had placed me and to keep pointing people back to Him while He was still teaching me to trust Him too.

Looking back now, I think that's what Homeward Revival was always meant to be. It was never intended to celebrate perfect homes, but to celebrate Christ-centered ones. Because "home" has never been defined by square footage, beautiful kitchens, or carefully curated lives. Home is built on a True Foundation every time a family chooses to put Jesus at the center.

Sometimes that's around a large dinner table. Sometimes it's dinner, picnic style on the floor because you don't have a table yet. Sometimes it's in the home you've prayed for all your life. Sometimes it's in a tiny cabin you never would have pictured yourself living in. Revival begins in all of them the very same way.

One prayer. One act of obedience to the Lord. One ordinary day of faithfulness at a time.

What I'm about to share isn't a list of lessons we've mastered. They're simply some of the things the Lord has been patiently teaching us while we continue waiting for our own breakthrough.

I pray they'll encourage you as you wait for yours.

God Is Still Good When Life Doesn't Make Sense

One of the greatest temptations in suffering is believing that if our circumstances no longer make sense, then maybe God's goodness doesn't either.

I don't think many Christians would ever say those words out loud.

But I do think many of us have quietly wrestled with them.

When our family's health declined and we realized we were losing our home, I wanted answers almost as much as I wanted healing. I wanted to know why. I wanted God to explain what He was doing and how any of it could possibly be for our good. 

Instead, He continually invited me back to a much simpler question.

"Will you trust Me?"

I've come to realize that trust and understanding are not the same thing. If I fully understood God's plans, trust wouldn't be necessary. Faith often begins where understanding ends.

Proverbs 3:5–6 tells us to trust in the Lord with all our hearts and lean not on our own understanding. I used to think those verses were mostly for everyday decisions.

Now I wonder if they were written especially for seasons like these. I still don't understand every piece of our story. Perhaps I never will this side of Heaven. But I know the One who is writing it and I know He loves His children with an everlasting love. That has become enough for today.

Grief and Gratitude Can Sit at the Same Table

One of the greatest lies I believed was that strong faith meant I shouldn't grieve so deeply. Somewhere along the way I began feeling guilty for crying. Guilty for being homesick for  the home we couldn't return to. Guilty for wishing life looked different. But Scripture paints a very different picture. Jesus wept. David poured out his heart (while weeping) in the Psalms. Jeremiah became known as the weeping prophet. Faith has never required us to pretend we aren't hurting.

Christian grief is different, not because we grieve less, but because we can grieve with hope. Over this past year I've also learned something I never understood before. Grief and gratitude can sit at the same table. You can deeply miss what you've lost while sincerely thanking God for what He has provided today. Those two things don't have to compete with one another. They simply remind us that suffering isn't the only thing present. God's mercies are still new every morning, sometimes we simply have to slow down enough to notice them.

God Gives Grace for Today

I wish God would hand us the entire roadmap. I’ve laid facedown on my floor crying out to Him to give it to me, just let me see the ending. Instead, He hands us today's portion. For someone who likes plans and certainty, that has been one of the hardest parts of this journey. I have had to die to my fleshly desire to turn to resentment and bitterness. 

I have wanted to know when healing will come. When we'll have a permanent home again. When this chapter will finally end. Instead, God has faithfully given us enough grace for today. Not next month. Not next year. Today. 

I've learned that anxiety grows when we try to carry tomorrow's burdens with today's strength. Jesus knew exactly what He was saying when He told us not to worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow comes with tomorrow's grace and today's grace is enough for today. The stripping away of control has been one of the most painful parts of this process, but I can finally see the fruit in it. 

Revival Begins Before the Breakthrough

Another deep lesson this season has taught me, is that revival was never meant to depend on our circumstances. For a while I believed my circumstances disqualified me from encouraging other families. Now I believe they have taught me something I could never have learned any other way. A Christ-centered home has very little to do with the building you live in. It is built one act of faithfulness at a time. One prayer around the dinner table. One worship song sung through tears. Showing up to be with other believers when you’d rather be alone. One ordinary act of obedience after another. That is where revival begins.Not after the breakthrough. Long before it. 

I wish I could tell you that by now everything has worked out exactly as we hoped.

It hasn't.

We are still praying for healing. We are still praying for a permanent home. We are still waiting for our breakthrough. But waiting no longer feels quite the way it once did. Because somewhere in the middle of this unfinished story, the Lord quietly began changing us.

He has stripped away fears we didn't even know we were carrying. He has reordered our priorities. He has taught us that His presence is no less real in the valley than it is on the mountaintop. And He has reminded us that revival never begins after life finally becomes easy. It begins every time we choose to say "yes" to Jesus. 

If you're walking through your own "before breakthrough" season, I hope our story reminds you that the same God who met Moses in the wilderness, David in the caves, Elijah beneath the broom tree, and Paul in prison is the same God who sees you today.

He has not forgotten you. He has not abandoned you, and He is not wasting this hard chapter of your story, even if today it all feels like it has been for nothing. Whatever it is that you’ve asked Him to let you quit, and His answer has been “No, keep going”, know that He will sustain you and make a way. The very trial you are in the middle of might be exactly the training ground He is using to help you fulfill your calling. I know that might be hard to see right now. 

One day we'll understand far more than we do now. Until then, we'll keep praying and we'll keep trusting that the God who never fails will not forget to come through for you and for me.